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Skills You’ll Need to Be a Front End Developer

Front-end developers are professionals who code sites using the simple tools of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. They simply pick up a design out there and develop it into a full-fledged website. If an individual is looking to become a web developer, then a career as a front end developer seems ideal and a versatile option to begin with. A front-end developer has the right set of skills which makes them a top candidate for organizations. The demand for front-end developers is also increasing in the landscape of information technology.

A front-end developer has the skills that are highly valued in the recruitment process. Today’s market conditions indicate that there is a clear demand for front-end developers in the corporate landscape, and as information technology continues to take new heights, there would be an ever-increasing need for experts. These skills can be acquired by enrolling in any front end development boot camp.

Following are the must-have skills required to be a front-end developer in information technology:

HTML or CSS

These are the basics of coding and for a front end developer, it’s vitally important to have a firm grasp on the basic concepts. There is not a single front-end developer job in the market that does not require proficiency in either of the programming languages. Let us explore deeper into what exactly HTML and CSS are. HTML or HyperText Markup Language is the basic language required to create web sites. Using a markup language, a user can make notes in a digital file for creating a difference from normal text. It is the most basic skill that is required to have. Without it, there is no beginning.

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is also a language that is used to present a file a user creates using HTML. HTML lays the foundation of a web site and to carry on the next process comes CSS, working on web page layout, design, font, color patterns, and style. Both of these languages are the requisites for developing a website. Without these basic skills, there cannot be anything.

JavaScript

JavaScript or jQuery are also considered as mandatory skills required for a front-end developer job. JavaScript is a full-fledged programming language. HTML and CSS are used to create the design and presentation of a web site, whereas, JavaScript helps in giving the website a function. Users can create a simple website with medium level functions buy for a more interactive and flexible site boasting a number of features like videos, audio play, games, scrolling animations, etc., JavaScript is required to put them.

It is also important to keep in mind that JavaScript carries a library just like jQuery, where there is a vast collection of plugins and extensions to go with your website. They basically make the JavaScript faster and convenient to use on your website. It works in a way that jQuery takes up common actions that would normally require a lot of coding lines, compresses them in a way that they can be performed in one line. This allows front-end developers to save a considerable amount of time which would be rather wasters writing multiple lines of JavaScript code.

JavaScript and CSS Frameworks

JavaScript and CSS are already covered above, but these two aspects are very extensive in their functions that there is more to learn. JavaScript and CSS Frameworks works in a way that they carry a large collection of JavaScript and CSS files using which a user can do a lot of different tasks. With the help of Frameworks, a user can simply avoid beginning to code on a blank page and rather has a document that already has different JavaScripts on it.

There are some advantages of Frameworks as well as limitations. For a front-end developer, it would be key to choose the best in the class framework for the kind of website needed to be built. Some JavaScript Frameworks are appropriate for the presentation of a web site’s contents and others are more suited for complex user interfaces.

A front-end developer can make it more interesting by using different frameworks simultaneously. A developer can use AngularJS and Bootstrap at the same time. The presentation is managed by Bootstrap while the content is overseen by Angular. CSS can also be used for creating more dynamics in the presentation. There would be many instances where a developer may require to use Frameworks at the same time, so knowledge of these basic aspects it’s very necessary in order to be a competent professional.

CSS Preprocessing

By now it would be clear that must skill are related to CSS which tells us the importance of it. It should be known that CSS itself has different sorts of limitations. One such is that a user is limited with respect to attributing mathematical functions to the code. You can’t put functions, variables press perform different mathematical functions. When a development project grows larger in scale, there’s an ever-increasing need for various kinds of functionalities. A developer may get frustrated writing different kinds of codes to get the job done but all to no avail. This is where CSS Preprocessing comes to make it increasingly convenient for developers.

There are different kinds of CSS Preprocessors that can be used including Stylus, Sass, and LESS. Using these a developer can write the code the language is the preprocessor. This way a developer avoids the mind-numbing task of doing it all in traditional CSS. The code is covered into CSS format which then becomes valid for a web page’s format.

Git or Version Control

This is a skill set that is not related to HTML, JavaScript or CSS. Once a developer has done all the work using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, they have to do some revisions on their work. It is important to conduct a revision session because if something stops working or glitches after the website has gone live, then it would be pretty difficult and time-consuming to undo the problem. This is why a final check to make sure everything is in place is necessary.

Version control is simply the process of tracking changes to the source code so the process of hurdles does not occur. It uses a software called Git to carry out this task. This allows a developer to track changes, letting them access a previous version of the document in order to detect any possible error that might have been committed. This is a life savings skillset and it has benefited more than one can imagine.